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After Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday... we finally come to Giving Tuesday. It's simple and easy to get your credit card or check book out and make a donation. Lots of good work gets done with the strength of many small donations.

At FRB, our success is built on relationships. On long term commitments. On passion. On this Giving Tuesday I challenge you

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization describes conversation agriculture as: a concept for resource-saving agricultural crop production that strives to achieve acceptable profits together with high and sustained production levels while concurrently conserving the environment.

In the recorded webinar, MCC staff based in Southern and Eastern Africa share

The Fremont area Foods Resource Bank (FRB) Growing Project, in partnership with the John Deere Foundation (JDF) and local 4-H clubs, has been honored to have Lydia Breen (Ensley/Newaygo Co. 4-H) and Brendan Carroll (Grant Livestock 4-H) join them in “growing lasting solutions to world hunger.”

The purpose of this collaboration, new in 2014,is to encourage agricultural learning among 4-H youth and to teach them about the development work FRB carries out overseas to help reduce world hunger.

Whether in Iowa or Ethiopia, farmers face many of the same challenges – climate change, access to land, rising costs of production, and the ability to provide a safe and healthy food to a growing population.

In spite of the devastating loss of incomes due to coffee rust and severe drought in the region, hardworking participants in the seven communities of FRB’s Mexico-Chiapas program are managing to produce food for home consumption and sale for income. The program has supplied families with 750-liter water tanks in order to collect rooftop water whenever it does rain.

Doña Angélica said the first rains this year were few and sparse but she was able to fill her tank easily. Afterward, there was a period of 20 days without rain but, she said with joy,

In FRB’s Kenya-Ndeiya program, making charcoal briquettes out of waste paper and other materials has become a solution to the scarcity of firewood, and a “green” source of income for many families. The Kenyan government has restricted thecutting of trees in an attempt to halt massive deforestation in the country, yet most people have no choice but to cook over open fires or on small wood-burning stoves.

A recent workshop demonstrated a creative way to make alternative fuel

A recent internal evaluation of FRB’s Haiti-Northwest program shows that its community cooperatives are helping their members make significant improvements in their lives and livelihoods.

In an area of the country with little government presence, farmer-run cooperatives in the Northwest and Artibonite departments of Haiti help their male and female members to build more resilient households,livelihoods and communities. The program especially focuses on women in their entrepreneurial efforts so that they have greater access to credit, training, and leadership formation opportunities.